WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:13.640 This is Haka Public Radio Episode 3,494 for Thursday the 23rd of December 2021. 00:13.640 --> 00:17.920 Today's show is entitled, Recent Generator Repairs and Maintenance. 00:17.920 --> 00:23.000 It is hosted by John Colb, and is about 18 minutes long, and Carissa Clean Flag. 00:23.000 --> 00:30.000 For some of you guys, I talk about my Generator Rack4, I was a vet sale parceling power generator, and what I've done to get it running right. 00:42.000 --> 00:46.000 Hey everybody, this is John Colb, in Lafayette, Louisiana. 00:46.000 --> 00:56.000 And today, I'm outside in my garage, about to get out my Generator to do its weekly testing. 00:56.000 --> 01:04.000 I've been working on this thing a lot, and I thought all along, I should do an HPR about it at some point, but I had to go around to it yet. 01:04.000 --> 01:07.000 First try to get it out of here. 01:07.000 --> 01:15.000 I keep it at the back of my garage tucked up underneath this little stare thing is heavy. 01:15.000 --> 01:29.000 It's got wheels thankfully, and I'm just going to pull it out around to the side of my house. 01:29.000 --> 01:35.000 I can start it up without getting fumes in the garage. 01:35.000 --> 01:47.000 What I have here is a Generator Rack4,000 XL, it does 4,000 watts. 01:47.000 --> 01:51.000 I'm not great with the electrical stuff, and my bill could probably help make it this right. 01:51.000 --> 02:03.000 4,000 watts, there's a 30-amp AC socket, and then there's a 20-amp AC, like a 4-prong socket. 02:03.000 --> 02:07.000 That's the one, like when the power goes out, that's the one I'll be using. 02:07.000 --> 02:14.000 I also got some electrical work done on my house to accommodate this Generator. 02:14.000 --> 02:26.000 I had a Generator Interlock installed in my panel, so the thing that allows you to plug from a 4-prong input, 02:26.000 --> 02:33.000 like what output on the Generator, into a box on the outside of your house, and it goes directly into your electrical panel. 02:33.000 --> 02:45.000 You can essentially run anything in your house as long as it doesn't exceed the electrical capacity of the Generator. 02:45.000 --> 02:50.000 You don't want to melt your Generator down by trying to force it to do too much. 02:50.000 --> 03:04.000 Eventually, if we have a hurricane sometime in the summer, and the power goes out, what I would have to do is cut off the breakers to my climate control units. 03:04.000 --> 03:06.000 That might be it. 03:06.000 --> 03:16.000 Maybe the water heater also, to make sure that those really high, those high draw items don't start running. 03:16.000 --> 03:25.000 But it would allow me to still keep the refrigerators running, to keep the food from spoiling, to keep the lights on, and that kind of thing. 03:25.000 --> 03:30.000 It's not a big Generator, it's not a great one, but it's a fairly reliable old one. 03:30.000 --> 03:33.000 It's a hand me down. 03:33.000 --> 03:41.000 I want to say this Generator is probably 22, 23 years old, and my dad gave it to me. 03:41.000 --> 03:51.000 I can remember the first time that he used this one, it was when I was visiting him up in Tennessee, and it was like January or December, I don't know. 03:51.000 --> 04:00.000 It was in the winter, and it was an ice storm in Tennessee, and they lost power for five days, and my dad hooked up to his own house. 04:00.000 --> 04:06.000 He hooked up a transfer switch, which is a different kind of thing than a Generator Interlock. 04:06.000 --> 04:15.000 The transfer switch you have to choose like four or six circuits or something like that, that you want to power with the Generator, 04:15.000 --> 04:22.000 and so you choose strategically the one that'll have your fridge and some lights and whatever else you want to be able to run. 04:22.000 --> 04:31.000 But that's all you can run, whereas the Generator Interlock allows you to use any of the circuits on your board as long as they don't exceed the ampers. 04:31.000 --> 04:40.000 There's a little bit more flexibility with the Interlock, but anyway, like what I can remember him running, I mean the house got really, really cold. 04:40.000 --> 04:56.000 I remember being in the 40s inside the house, but he was able to keep their refrigerator going, some lights, and my mom used a little electric skillet to heat things up, and that was about it. 04:56.000 --> 05:09.000 It was pretty miserable, and you might not be surprised that shortly after that, my dad got a much better Generator, that's just like this built in a much bigger Generac brand generator, 05:09.000 --> 05:22.000 that just lives in a box outside the house that's weatherproofed, and that is fed continuously by his very large propane tank, and that will automatically kick on when the power goes out. 05:22.000 --> 05:27.000 And it's a much more expensive deal, it was some like 5,000 bucks or something. 05:27.000 --> 05:32.000 This Generator was probably $400 or $500 when he bought it. 05:32.000 --> 05:46.000 So he gave this one to me when he got his new big home Generator, and ironically enough, now that I've got this one working again, it looks like he's going to be upgrading his big Generator and giving me the old one. 05:46.000 --> 05:55.000 So whatever, anyway, it's something if you live in South Louisiana in Hurricane Country, it's a good idea to have a Generator. 05:55.000 --> 06:09.000 The last time the power went out here, I ended up not using it because I think at that moment, it wasn't even really working, but my friend Corey, his house was without power for two or three days, 06:09.000 --> 06:23.000 and I told him, look, man, I've got a Generator, but I don't know if it'll start. So I brought it over there, we fiddle around with it, we finally got it started, and he ran his lights and fridge and stuff for a couple of days until his power came back on. 06:23.000 --> 06:30.000 But after that whole experience, I decided, you know, what I better keep this thing in good working order, so that it will be ready. 06:30.000 --> 06:43.000 And so after that, I started, you know, I changed the air filter, I changed the spark plug, I changed the oil, the oil filter, what else did I do to it? 06:43.000 --> 06:51.000 Not much after that, and I just would take it out about once a week, every two weeks, and start it up to make sure it's still ran. 06:51.000 --> 07:09.000 So because you don't want to be trying to fix it at the moment when you need it, right? And I've been doing that for the last year and a half or so, and then about six weeks ago, I went out to do that very same thing and found it wouldn't run. 07:09.000 --> 07:24.000 The engine seized up, it wouldn't start. I tried to pull on the recoil and it just locked, like it wouldn't move at all. I thought that was great. So am I going to have to buy a new generator now? 07:24.000 --> 07:37.000 But then I thought, well, you know what, maybe I can just fix it, so I'd Google the problem and found that there are a few things that can cause the engine not to move like that for that, you know, not to be able to pull the thing. 07:37.000 --> 07:49.000 And one of them seemed like a likely candidate, it's called Hydrolock. The Hydrolock is when something happens and some moisture gets into the piston chamber. 07:49.000 --> 07:59.000 And because it's a very airtight thing in there, if there's extra stuff, then the piston can't move because it's locked up. 07:59.000 --> 08:13.000 And what they say to do is take the spark plug out and then pull on the recoil and if you find that with the spark plug removed, you can pull the recoil again, then that's probably your problem. 08:13.000 --> 08:33.000 So I pulled the spark plug out and tried pulling on the cord and what do you know, it moved. And so it said, once if they, if you find that that's the problem, then just give that about 10 good yanks to let it blow all the moisture out of there, put the spark plug back in, hook it back up and see if it'll start. 08:33.000 --> 08:47.000 And I did that and I think it started back up, but then not too long after that it did it again. And so then I started to think there's probably something further wrong with it. 08:47.000 --> 09:01.000 So I started watching videos on YouTube about repairing generators, and I found this amazing channel by a guy named James Condon, who he's a small engine repair guy somewhere cold, 09:01.000 --> 09:18.000 like an, I don't know, of North or in the Midwest or something like that. But he has like a ton of videos about repairing old generators that look like they could put not possibly be salvaged, but he almost always manages to fix them and get them running and then he'll resell them. 09:18.000 --> 09:23.000 So anyway, that's like my new favorite thing to watch is these generator repair videos. 09:23.000 --> 09:33.000 So I've watched a bunch of those and one of the things you learn if you start looking into this is that the carburator is a major culprit in a lot of these problems. 09:33.000 --> 09:43.000 And so I took off my carburator and cleaned it out according to what I saw on the videos and it was able to start up again, it started right up. 09:43.000 --> 09:58.000 But it still would not idle. There's an idle button on here where you turn it on and if there's no power being drawn from it, it'll spend it a much lower RPM and that bite, it'll save fuel that way. 09:58.000 --> 10:01.000 So I wanted to get that working. 10:01.000 --> 10:14.000 One of the other things was that before I did any of these repairs when it used to still run, it would never run if the choke were turned off and that's kind of a problem. 10:14.000 --> 10:25.000 Normally you only need the choke when you're starting it, but it would need the choke not only to start up, but then I would have to run it at half choke or else it would just stall out and die. 10:25.000 --> 10:37.000 And so that's also an indicator of some kind of fuel problem. And the clean carburator, once I cleaned the carburator off and put it back on, it was able to run without choke. 10:37.000 --> 10:40.000 So that was improvement, right? 10:40.000 --> 10:47.000 So anyway, it still wasn't doing what I really wanted it to. I wanted it to be able to idle and all the things. 10:47.000 --> 10:52.000 So I decided to just buy a brand new carburator because they're only like $20. 10:52.000 --> 11:00.000 And the new carburator came not only with the carburator, but the gas gets for it. It came with a new fuel line. 11:00.000 --> 11:08.000 What else did it have? A couple of fuel filters and mine did not have a fuel filter on it before. 11:08.000 --> 11:15.000 So what I did was I put in the new fuel line and then also installed the filter. 11:15.000 --> 11:29.000 And now it runs much better. It runs much better. And so I had to, I think when I cleaned the carburator, I did not find all of the little jets and holes that you're supposed to clean out. 11:29.000 --> 11:44.000 There are a bunches of them and they're hidden in funny places. And so you have to take the whole thing apart, clean it real good and like run little wires through all the holes that are little brushes and then carb cleaner and James Condon will take every one of these things and put it through. 11:44.000 --> 11:57.000 What is it called? It's an ultrasonic. It's an ultrasonic cleaner where he mixes water with like a parts degreaser kind of solution and everything comes out spotless. 11:57.000 --> 12:03.000 And then I'll put it all back together and it should normally works great after that. 12:03.000 --> 12:10.000 Anyway, so I got the new carburator, got the new fuel line. What else did I do here? 12:10.000 --> 12:19.000 I had to set the engine speed because it was running too fast and the way you figure out whether it's running too fast, there's a couple of ways. 12:19.000 --> 12:36.000 One is to use a little electronic electricity usage monitor, like a kilowatt and I have a knockoff version of one of those but you plug it in, you run the engine and then you press the function button until it gets to the hurts. 12:36.000 --> 12:44.000 So then that'll tell you how fast you want the engine with no load on it to be running around 62 hurts according to all the videos I've been watching. 12:44.000 --> 12:54.000 And then when you put a load on it like a heater or something like that, it'll go down a little bit but you don't want it to go down lower than like 58, 59 hurts. 12:54.000 --> 13:06.000 And then you check the voltage output by hitting the little function button until it gets to the volts and mine was really not putting out enough volts. 13:06.000 --> 13:18.000 It was under no load, it was about 117 volts and then as soon as I turned on the heater, it dropped down to like 104 volts, which is not enough, it needs to be close to 120. 13:18.000 --> 13:34.000 But there's a little adjustment, there's a little adjustment potentiometer inside the little access hole on the side of the generator where you put a tiny screwdriver in there and then you just turn it just a hair and it will adjust that. 13:34.000 --> 13:54.000 I did that adjustment, I adjusted the engine speed by using the engine speed adjustment screw and it's pretty much doing what I want now. And so the other thing is I drained the fuel tank completely to make sure the fuel tank would didn't have like debris and stuff and it was okay. 13:54.000 --> 14:06.000 And then I also had to go on the search for non-ethanol gasoline because everyone says on these kinds of engines they get gummed up really easy if your gas has ethanol in it. 14:06.000 --> 14:23.000 So finding non-ethanol gas is not the easiest thing, but I got a buddy at work who knew where to go get it and so I went to this gas station that I would never otherwise go to because it's not in a convenient location. 14:23.000 --> 14:33.000 But it has a giant sign out front that says no ethanol, so I got that and hopefully that'll help me keep the works from getting gummed up. 14:33.000 --> 14:57.000 I'm feeling that though, you can put some stuff in the tank called stay bill. I've got a little bottle of it over here. I think that's what it's called. It's called stay bill fast fix STA hyphen B-I-L small engine treatment. It says this little bottle says it treats 20 gallons. 14:57.000 --> 15:07.000 So you put like a teaspoon of that in your tank for every two or four gallons or whatever and that will help keep it from going bad. 15:07.000 --> 15:18.000 So anyway, I'm going to fire this up so you can hear my generator running and that'll probably be about enough of this. 15:18.000 --> 15:21.000 So the things you have to do to start a generator, this is what I didn't even know. 15:21.000 --> 15:33.000 When my friend Cory and I were trying to get this thing started, we were like, how do you do that? I mean, there's not a whole lot to it, but if you don't do things in the right order, then it might not work. 15:33.000 --> 15:48.000 So you've got to turn the run switch to the run position, put the choke all the way on and then you have to open up the fuel line if your generator has a fuel cut off, which is a great thing for it to have, by the way. 15:48.000 --> 15:59.000 And then you start it up and normally after you pull the recoil, you have to pull the choke down pretty quick to keep it from whatever. 15:59.000 --> 16:02.000 So let's see if this starts up. 16:02.000 --> 16:25.000 There we go. 16:25.000 --> 16:40.000 Okay, so it started right up, the first pull, and I'm going to let it run for a couple of minutes. It's very noisy over there, so I'm walking over here to a different part, a different side of my house. 16:40.000 --> 16:47.000 When I get the new generator from my dad, you know, my hand me down big generator, it will be able to power way more stuff. 16:47.000 --> 16:53.000 I think it's something like 12,000 watts or 15,000 watts instead of just 4,000. 16:53.000 --> 16:58.000 And also, it will hook directly into my natural gas line. 16:58.000 --> 17:08.000 So it'll use a cleaner burning fuel, and it's a fuel that I won't have to go fill up with those little red cans, and it's a pain to do that. 17:08.000 --> 17:18.000 Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have the generator that I do because it's wonderful to be able to turn your power on after a hurricane. 17:18.000 --> 17:33.000 But I'm looking forward to having the one that will automatically recognize when the power gets cut off and will kick in so that you have the minimal interruption in power. 17:33.000 --> 17:47.000 At the same time that I was getting the generator interlock installed, I also had the guy install a whole house surge suppressor, and so that should help keep my electronics safe in the house as well. 17:47.000 --> 17:51.000 Um, I guess that's about it. 17:51.000 --> 18:01.000 Hope you all have enjoyed hearing about generators, not the most exciting topic, but it's been strangely compelling to me lately. 18:01.000 --> 18:10.000 Like, almost all the stuff I've been watching is YouTube videos on how to fix generators, and I find it very, very pleasing. 18:10.000 --> 18:20.000 So I highly recommend James Carnan's channel. I'll put a link to that in the show notes, and I'll talk to you all some other time about something else. Bye now. 18:41.000 --> 18:50.000 You've been listening to Hecker Public Radio at HeckerPublicRadio.org. 18:50.000 --> 18:54.000 Today's show was contributed by an HBR listener like yourself. 18:54.000 --> 19:01.000 If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then click on our contribute link to find out how easily it is. 19:01.000 --> 19:06.000 Hosting for HBR is kindly provided by an honesthost.com. 19:06.000 --> 19:11.000 The internet archive and our Sync.net on this otherwise status. 19:11.000 --> 19:26.000 Today's show is released under a creative comments, attribution, share a like, lead us our lessons.